


At First Sight

by scholarlydragon



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Party, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scholarlydragon/pseuds/scholarlydragon
Summary: Hades is anxious to escape the Panathenea. Until he sees a certain face in the crowd....
Comments: 3
Kudos: 58





	At First Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Diana, Jessy, Spooks, and Alulah for beta help! ❤️

The ache in his chest seemed to pulse in time with the beat.

Out on the dance floor, bodies swayed in time with the music, the strobes of purple, blue and pink lending a strange, flickering glow to the partying gods, nymphs, satyrs and others.

Hades took another sip of his scotch and didn’t bother to suppress a grimace. At least Hera had wandered off and Amphitrite had been unable to attend. Zeus and Poseidon were bad enough without their wives hovering and making his solitude all the more conspicuous.

The weight of the ring box in his jacket pocket, thumping against his side as he moved, was a constant reminder of failure. Where had it all gone wrong? Granted, Minthe had never been the easiest to pry out to social events, but they'd been planning to attend the Panathenea together for weeks. She had even seemed excited about it after he’d taken pains to convince her that, regardless of his family’s behavior, _he_ wanted her there.

It had seemed an excellent chance to get her alone and try for more in their relationship.

Hades scoffed quietly to himself. They had never really bothered to put a label on what they had before. _Why should she want more just because you’re a lonely idiot?_

He’d been a fool.

That was really all it boiled down to. He was lonely, tired of being the solitary king and Minthe was the only woman who had tolerated him for long enough for even a hint of a relationship to form. 

Relationship… _Is that what this is?_ _Not much else to call it if you have a ring in your pocket, old man. Truly a mighty love story: the king asks his friends-with-benefits PA to be his queen. The stuff of which epic poems are written…_

He sneered into his scotch as he took another sip, disgusted with himself. Nothing more than a fool. Really, he didn’t even have the excuse of being in love. Minthe was little more than an object of convenience. A woman who could stand to be around him and at least tolerated his touch. 

He barely listened to Zeus and Poseidon’s chatter, responding no more than he had to and wanting nothing more than to leave. Surreptitiously, he glanced at his watch. _Damn._ Alone, with the weight of idiotic hope in his pocket and the mocking burn of liquor in his belly, dealing with his brothers was even more tedious than usual, but he’d never hear the end of it if he cut out before the halfway mark of the night.

A flash of movement against the roiling crowd below caught his eye and Hades peered down at the perimeter of the dance floor. Along the edge of the throng, a few new arrivals made their way into the party, as they had throughout the evening. One figure stood out among the multicolored mob of dancers, however, the pale skin tone of a mortal in marked contrast to the rainbowed hues of immortals. Hades recognized the mortal after a moment’s thought. Something that started with an O… Odd… Oddy…

Hades frowned as he thought. Odysseus! That was it. A king that had gotten himself in some giant war. Par for the course for mortals, but this one had been big enough to draw at least some Olympian attention. The sudden sound of a fist smacking the glass made Hades jump just as Poseidon snarled a command to Odysseus move along.

His interest already lost for the petty drama, Hades let his eye and mind wander, his thoughts on how to pass the time until he could reasonably slip away. Idly, he recognized Artemis, laughing quietly with a small goddess with petal pink skin…

He watched the pink goddess’ laughing smile vanish, her mouth dropping into an "O" of surprise amid a burst of flower petals as the frightened Odysseus collided into her as he backed away in a panic. Time seemed to slow as the pink goddess spun and crumpled to the floor, petals drifting around her, and everything else seemed to fall away.

The thumping music, his brothers, the weight of the damn ring in his pocket… As the goddess slumped, every graceful line and curve of her form curled inward with a melancholy that he craved to grasp and understand, Hades was aware of nothing except the thundering of his pulse.

He barely noticed he’d placed one gloved hand on the glass at the edge of the balcony, as though he could reach out to her. His other hand clutched to his chest, trying to slow his frantically racing heart and gain a moment to understand what was happening, to comprehend the strange warmth flowing through him.

The small goddess looked down at the flower petals in her hands and his heart seemed to spasm in his chest as she gazed up, a sorrowful look on her beautiful face and Hades' mouth went dry. The words almost had to be forced out past the pounding of the pulse in his throat, but he had to know.

"Who is she?"


End file.
